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Dostoevsky, the famous 19th-century Russian novelist, is buried at Trinity (Tikhvin) Cemetery in St. Petersburg. On his tombstone are these words, translated into English: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it remains alone; but if it die, it brings forth much fruit." Not only is this a quote from the Bible (John 12 verse 24), it is the epigraph that Dostoevsky penned for his last novel, Brothers Karamazov. The words on Dostoevsky’s tombstone mean, essentially, that Dostoevsky believed that his death would not be the end for him. Rather—like a seed when it is planted in the ground—he would have a different kind of life after his earthly death.

With Anna’s help, The Gambler took shape.

Always more practical than her future husband, Anna gave Fyodor Mikhailovich good advice. Stellovsky didn’t want the book on time—he wanted unfettered rights to all Dostoevsky’s work for the next decade. Would the publisher anxiously await the manuscript—or—would he close his shop on November 1st so no one was there to receive the book?

A rogue is a rogue, especially when the deck is stacked in his favor. Stellovsky left town. No one was in his office to receive the manuscript.

Anticipating the publisher’s real intent, Anna convinced Dostoevsky to deliver the book to the police station where he would receive a time-dated receipt. He met the deadline with two hours to spare.

Anna Grigoryevna and Fyodor Mikhailovich were married (the link depicts their published correspondence from 1867) soon after The Gambler was finished. They had four children; two ("Fedya," a son, and Lyubov, a daughter) survived.

Another son, Alexei, inherited his father’s epilepsy. Called "Alyosha," by his family, the little boy died after a two-hour seizure. Inconsolable, his parents sought the help of Ambrosius, a Russian Orthodox monk. Here, too, reality was incorporated into Dostoevsky’s fiction. Ambrosius later became Father Zosima in Brothers Karamazov.

Dostoevsky continued to play the roulette wheel during the early years of his second marriage. Love of family, however, helped him to nurture his extraordinary writing gift.

Three days earlier, he had fallen ill at his St. Petersburg apartment. No one expected him to die. But on the morning of the 28th, the writer told Anna that day would be his last. She didn’t believe him—perhaps he was hallucinating. But at his insistence, Anna (who survived him by many years) summoned the children. He told them good-bye.

Not long before midnight, resting on the sofa in his study, he was gone. (This is his death mask.) His beloved copy of Raphael’s "The Sistine Madonna," looked down on him. The immediate cause of death was hemorrhage of the throat.

Perhaps it is his main subject which continues to draw people to his stories. Dostoevsky’s skill in penetrating the oft-impenetrable—the depths of a person’s soul—endeared him to nineteenth-century Russians. And it is that unusual ability to understand—and then to articulate the human condition—which helps to explain his popularity today.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Nineteenth-century, public-domain images of Dostoevsky and his life are available in many books written by scholars. The most extensive source for such images, which we relied upon for this story, is the following Russian-language book: Dostoevsky, by Yury Seleznev, published by Molodaya Gvardiya in 1985.